The Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival, which is held in Gainesville, FL at the Hippodrome State Theater, alternates each year between a curated and a competitive festival. This year’s edition that runs Feb. 20-26 is a competitive one and looking at the lineup below, which includes lots of names familiar to the Underground Film Journal, the competition will be stiff.

This is the first time I’m listing FLEX — as the fest is called in shorthand — on the site. I’ve been sadly unaware of it until now. But I’m glad I did get clued in because lots of my favorite filmmakers have films screening. Most excitingly, Florida native filmmaker Georg Koszulinski has two short documentaries screening, which I would kill to see since his feature doc Immokalee, U.S.A. was one of my favorite films in 2008.

Two films that I have seen and positively adore are screening: Sylvia Schedelbauer‘s haunting False Friends and Martha Colburn‘s kinetic Don’t Kill the Weatherman. I also recently watched and reviewed Don Hertzfeldt‘s epically surreal I Am So Proud of You; and I’m excited to see that one of my favorite directors, Vanessa Renwick, has a new film screening, Portrait #2: Trojan. Plus, there’s lots of names from the underground circuit in the lineup: Jim Finn, Kevin Jerome Everson, Ben Russell, Kerry Laitala, Jem Cohen and Jim Trainor.

All in all, this is a very exciting event:

Feb. 20
7:00 p.m.: “Competition Program One: Love/Songs”
People In Order #3: Love, dirs. Lenka Clayton and James Price
Gravity, dir. Nicolas Provost
How to Conduct a Love Affair, dir. David Gatten
Folk Songs, dir. LeAnn Erickson
Songs of Praise for the Heart Beyond Cure, dirs. Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby
Intermittent Delight, dir. Akosua Adoma Owusu
Yard Work Is Hard Work, dir. Jodie Mack (Watch online)

9:00 p.m.: “Competition Program Two: Spacey Space”
Energie!, dir. Thorsten Fleisch (Watch online)
Observando El Cielo, dir. Jeanne Liotta
Wax and Wane, dir. Cassandra C. Jones
Distorted Areas, dir. Manuel Knapp
All Through the Night, dir. Michael Robinson
Phantogram, dir. Kerry Laitala
It Will Die Out in the Mind, dir. Deborah Stratman
Space Ghost, dir. Laurie Jo Reynolds

Feb. 21
4:30 p.m.: “Competition Program Three: People?”
Home, dir. Kevin Jerome Everson
Between the Sheets, dir. Warren Cockerham
Thanks Anyway, dir. Mischa Leinkauf
The Eternal Quarter Inch, dir. Jesse McLean
B&W Trypps #3, dir. Ben Russell (Watch online)
Smells Like Teen Spirit, dir. Jem Cohen
Shiny Things, dir. Salise Hughes
Sittin’ on a Million, dirs. Penny Lane and Annmarie Lanesey
People In Order #1: Age, dirs. Lenka Clayton and James Price (Watch online)

7:00 p.m.: “Program Four: Politics as (un)Usual”
Portrait #2: Trojan, dir. Vanessa Renwick
Conversation, dirs. Lenka Clayton and James Price
Dirty Pictures, dir. John Smith
Playing Dead, dir. Kevin Jerome Everson
For Ilse, dir. Lauren Cook
Don’t Kill the Weatherman!, dir. Martha Colburn
Fragments From an Endless War, dir. Georg Koszulinski
I Covered My Eyes, dir. Paul Turano

9:00 p.m.: “Competition Program Five: The Adult Party”
Lezzieflick, dir. Nana Swiczinsky
Sunbeam Hunter, dir. Jonathan Schwartz
The Presentation Theme, dir. Jim Trainor
Speechless, dir. Scott Stark
To Be Regained, dir. Zachary Iannazzi (Read the review)
Lovely Andrea, dir. Hito Steyerl

Feb. 22
2:30 p.m.: “Competition Program Six: The Country and the City”
Bumblebee, dir. Eric Ostrowski
Ichthyopolis, dir. André Silva
Blue Tide, Black Water, dirs. Eve Gordon and Sam Hamilton
Sphinx on the Seine, dir. Paul Clipson (Read the review)
Dig, dir. Robert Todd
Lampang Bouquet, dir. Tony Balko
The Night Wood, dir. Kang Min Kim
America in Pictures, dir. Georg Koszulinski (Watch online)
Nook and Cranny, dir. Francien van Everdingen
Kalendar, dir. Naomi Uman
Autumnal, dir. Scott Nyerges
Sunshine State (Extended Forecast), dir. Christopher Harris

7:00 p.m.: “Competition Program Seven: Looking”
Quiero Ver, dir. Adele Horne
You Will Be Outdated Soon, dir. Scott Ross
The Sequent of Hannah Ave., dir. Sami van Ingen
The Death of Natural Language, dir. Clint Enns (Watch online)
Faux Movements, dir. Pip Chodorov
In the Mix, dir. Jan Machacek
Millimeters, dir. Lori Felker
16184, dir. Tomonari Nishikawa
All That Rises, dir. Daïchi Saïto
Things to Remember, dir. Ryan Garrett

9:00 p.m.: “Competiion Program Eight: Dysfunction Junction, funny and not”
People In Order #4: Home, dirs. Lenka Clayton and James Price
Utopia Sighs, dirs. Heidi Schwegler and Scott Tebeau
Paul and the Badger – Episode 3, dir. Paul Tarragó
Hallelujah! Gorilla Revival, dirs. Jason Keener and Jeremiah Ledbetter
She Used to See Him Most Weekends, dir. Penny Lane
Testing the Undertow, dir. Jen Proctor
False Friends, dir. Sylvia Schedelbauer (Read the review)
I Am So Proud Of You, dir. Don Hertzfeldt (Read the review)
People In Order #2: Birth, dirs. Lenka Clayton and James Price

Feb. 24
7:00 p.m.: The Juche Idea, dir. Jim Finn. “Juche” is the official North Korean religious and political ideology and it means “self-reliance.” In Finn’s film, a South Korean video artist takes a residency in the North and tries to bring “Juche” into the world of revolutionary art.

9:00 p.m.: “Silent Films/Loud Music”
“A return of FLEX’s popular series where local bands score silent films.”

Feb. 25
4:30 p.m.: O’er the Land, dir. Deborah Stratman. A meditation on war, freedom and manifest destiny, as evidenced by gun shows, famous battle reenactments and the story of a fighter pilot’s harrowing ordeal after ejecting from his cockpit during a thunderstorm.
Playing with A Film Far Beyond a God, dir. Waël Noureddine

7:00 p.m.: The Exiles, dir. Kent Mackenzie. This is a restored version of the classic film that chronicles a night in the lives of Native Americans living in Los Angeles.

9:00 p.m.: “Small Change Presents ACTION NEWS”
Small Change is an experimental screening series in Philadelphia that has now gone on the road. Work in this collection of films is by Ryan Trecartin, Ted Passon, Sarah Christman, David Dunn, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Chris Ward, Michael Robinson, and Clare Rojas.

Feb. 26
7:00 p.m.: The Pool, dir. Chris Smith. A fictional film by documentarian Smith (American Movie) in which an impoverished youth goes to work for a wealthy man so he can swim in a luxurious pool.

9:00 p.m.: “Best of Festival Program”
“FLEX represents the films that received awards in the competitive programs for those who missed them or for those who want to watch them one more time.”

For more info, please visit the official FLEX site.